Europe & Japan in Ruins

Comments (0)

Transcript of Europe & Japan in Ruins

Europe & Japan in RuinsDevestation in Europe •By the end of WWII, Europe lay in ruins.•Close to 40 million Europeans had died, two-thirds of them civilians.

A Harvest of destruction • After the bombings, many civilians stayed where they were and tried to get on with their lives.• A large number of people did not stay where they were, rather, they took the roads out.

Misery Continues After the War•The fighting had ravaged Europe’s countryside, and agriculture had been completely destroyed.•The first postwar winter brought more suffering as people went without shoes and coats.Postwar Governments and Politics•Despairing Europeans often blamed their leaders for the war and its aftermath.•Once the Germans lost, some prewar governments – like those in Belgium, Holland, Denmark, and Norway – returned quickly.

Postwar Governments and Politics•After the war, the Communist Party promised change, and millions were ready to listen.•In France and Italy, many resistance fighters were communists.The Nuremberg Trials•While nations were struggling to recover politically and economically, they also tried to deal with the issue of war crimes.Nuremberg Trials •Adolf Hitler, SS chief Heinrich Himmler, and Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels had committed suicide long before the trials beganPostwar Japan•Two million lives had been lost.•The country’s major cities, including the capital, Tokyo, had been largely destroyed by bombing raids.Occupied Japan•General Douglas MacArthur, who had accepted the Japanese surrender, took charge of the U.S. occupation of Japan.Occupied Japan •MacArthur was determined to be fair and not to plant seeds of the future war. Nevertheless, to ensure that peace would prevail, he began a process of Demilitarization.Demilitarization: Disbanding the Japanese armed forces.Hyaku Ana CliffThe Hyaku Ana Cliff Tombs in Saitama are some of the oldest ruins in all of Japan, dating back 1330 years. A second layer of history was added in the Second World War when deep munitions tunnels were carved into the rock.